Warren Spector, Disney Epic Mickey, and Making Games That Matter

Share.

Epic Mickey's creator puts originality above all else.

By Seán O'Sullivan

Most video game luminaries have charisma, but Warren Spector’s ability to captivate is innate. The legendary developer has no qualms about getting misty-eyed when discussing Epic Mickey’s story, or pantomiming the jerky animations that regularly betray ‘realistic’ games. He charmingly offsets this showmanship with a great deal of self-deprecation, preemptively apologizing for being a “wordy bastard” before opening up about his seminal legacy. It’s hard to think of any industry personalities attached to as many revered titles as Spector, whether directly or not. Spector's past employees have gone on to work on titles such as Half Life 2, Oblivion, Bioshock, and Dishonored. It’s not a stretch to think his uncompromising ambition and innate ability to captivate might be contagious.

So how has he accomplished this lasting influence on the industry? It has little to do with his quixotic notions and charming demeanor, but rather deeply-held convictions that he pursues aggressively.

“I will not support any game that doesn’t express what I think is worthwhile," Spector told IGN. "I have one more vote than anybody else any project that has my name on it, and I will shut you down or veto anything I disagree with.” Those he mentors are aware of what they’re in for.

Spector’s studio Junction Point “is not going to make a silly puzzle game, no matter how much fun it is," he says. "We’re not going to do a Facebook game aimed at 35-year old women about farming. We will never make a game that doesn’t express [a] ‘playstyle matters, choice and consequence’ idea.” These ideals are what the man sees as important, and are the design philosophies he’ll continue supporting. “And if you don’t want to do that,” Spector says, “go work somewhere else.”

“

Making other people better is really a powerful drug.

Since his career started in the late '80s, Spector has championed player choice, a staple he carried forward from his time producing pen and paper RPGs. Regardless of his role on the games he’s been involved with, he considers them to be “all about exactly the same thing: a player showing how clever and creative they are, creating their own experiences, and telling their own stories. That is what I care about as a developer. Not as a gamer, but as a developer."

Considering the imprint Spector has already left on the industry, the value in sticking to his convictions is readily apparent. However, he’s always open to ideas, provided his team members bear in mind an important rule: “What’s the one thing that nobody has ever seen?” Spector says, “If you can’t answer that question, don’t even bother trying.”

There have been many notable examples that come from this process through the years, some more successful than others. “Harvey Smith, one of the co-directors on Dishonored, came to me with an idea back in Origin called Technosaur,” Spector recalls. “I thought it was so cool that he burned with this passion, so we had to do it!” They didn’t, ultimately, as the real-time strategy game never saw the light of day – but the direction and drive behind it captivated Spector.

“Tony Zurovec, one of my lead programmers, came to bend my ear about this game he had in his head that he had to make.” After enduring a three-hour monologue pitching Crusader: No Remorse, Spector wasn’t entirely convinced about the isometric shooter, so he leveled with the would-be creator.

“I said ‘Tony, I don’t get that game. Wouldn’t make that game. Not even sure I want to play that game. But if I don’t help you make that game, you’re going to go make it somewhere else.’” That gut decision paid off in 1995, of course, and 17 years later Spector is still sticking to his guns: Ideas matter most. “Anybody who believes in something that much gets my support," he says. "That’s where greatness comes from. It doesn’t come from a focus test. It doesn’t come from great graphics, or a marketing campaign, or TV ads. It doesn’t come from a bundle-in package. It comes from someone who will quit before he gives up on that idea.”

As budgets on AAA games (and the risks associated) ballooned, Spector briefly allowed this tenet to bend. “The second Deus Ex game was pushed further into the future, and Alex D got a purple jumpsuit because market research showed that would make the game sell better," Spector bristles. "That was the one time that I have ever allowed a focus test to significantly affect what I did.”

He won't let it happen again. “I’ve made more games than a lot of people. I’ve been involved in some way with 22 or 23 games now. Your life is going to be defined by 25, 30 things, at most. Imagine that. And then imagine putting money first, or what fans want," he says. "I gotta do what I think is right, and if enough people like it, I’m a winner. And if they don’t, I’ll open a bookstore."

For Spector, the actual process of creating and redefining genres involves a lot of work that he describes as “boring as hell.” His pattern has been to be heavily involved in preproduction, then check back in around the alpha stage.

This is a valuable tactic because Spector’s rule for getting ahead is to "hire people better than you.” Naturally, Spector has a highly visible example of this too; the original skill system he devised for Deus Ex “was no fun." Harvey Smith recognized this, took it upon himself to completely redesign it, and then presented it to his boss for approval.

Spector is still flabbergasted by the impact a motivated team member can make. “I don’t want to overstate this, but it felt like it was overnight.” He recounts his sheepish reaction, still awed as he relives it over a decade later, “‘Well, that’s way better than what I came up with! Let’s do that.'”

Spector’s modesty is disarming in light of how frequently he has been lauded as an auteur and a visionary. He has a slightly different take on things.

He thinks of himself “as guy who makes other people smarter. Seriously, I don’t know if people would really tell you this. But in my dream world, the people who work for you would say 'Wow, I didn’t know I could do that until I started working with that guy.’" He believes that "making other people better is really a powerful drug," which he achieves by holding his team to the "highest standards and insisting that they do better."

So what kind of an example does he set? “When I think about myself, I am a stubborn mule, unwilling to bend, don’t-care-what-you-think-of-me advocate for a particular type of game and a particular type of game design.”

“

I gotta do what I think is right.

Spector is adamant that every game he's worked on has been driven by a mantra of "let’s try and do that better, let’s try and do that more.” The industry eventually seems to have received the memo that player agency enriches games, but Spector wants that philosophy to tackle new frontiers. “Developers are still making games for each other” he laments. Smartphones have made gaming ubiquitous, but Spector wants to do more to put deeper, “real games” in the hands of the general public. “The games that I’ve been making, that the guys at Valve and Bioware make, have never tried to push out of the core game community.” Spector maintains that with Mickey as the star of his new series, “we did."

To Spector, Epic Mickey represented an opportunity to “use the most recognizable icon on the planet” as a Trojan horse for getting deeper notions of “choice and consequence” to non-traditional gamers. Spector is gratified by the “stupidly specific” metrics Disney gathered confirming his success in reaching a wide demographic.

Epic Mickey really only had a flimsy veneer of choice that didn’t materially impact the story, a shortcoming that Spector admits, especially since the non-core demographic noticed it too. “What we heard from those people was ‘Hey! I made all these choices in this game and they didn't matter as much as I expected them to. What’s up with that?’”

Spector speaks triumphantly about his failure. “We got through to them. And now we can do more."

Now that the first wave of converts to Spectorism are emerging as creative powerhouses in their own right, it’s clear that the lessons have been learned, and the movement will propagate more aggressively. Considering the prescience he has exhibited to date, it seems likely that making games Warren’s Way will prove to be a timeless design that will charge headlong onto these new frontiers long after the movement’s champion has opened that bookstore.